Splice of Life

6th grade Wood Shop was the bane of my existence for however many weeks it lasted.  I could no more hammer a nail into wood at a 90 degree angle than I could pilot a space ship.  Effective hammering takes skills and talents I do not possess -- namely, good depth perception and eye-hand coordination.  Sure, with practice, I could improve my ability in this area.  But, do you know what?  I have a deficiency in depth perception and an astigmatism, so any task requiring good eye-hand coordination will not be my forte.  For example, in games with flying balls, I tend to duck and cover.  I am OK with not being excellent at everything.  There were several boys at my lab table in shop class who liked me well enough to help me through the project.  The memo scroll I (we) created still lives somewhere in my mother's memorabilia.  Wood Shop class taught me much more than how to use a jigsaw to carve a scroll and how to flirt with boys to get their help.  


I learned at a young age to focus on developing my natural talents and abilities.  According to positive psychology, you see stronger results going this route than trying to correct areas of weakness.  In the intervening (ahem) 20+ years since middle school, I have honed my persuasion skills to a fine point.  I suck people into projects and ideas all the time.  20 years of building on an innate talent has exponentially increased my skills in influencing others.  20 years of trying to hammer nails into wood has not yielded such amazing results.  If I go slow, take my time, and concentrate very hard, I have a 50-50 shot at getting my nail to go in at a 90 degree angle.  Really.  After all that time and practice.  It's much more efficient (and safer) to outsource that task to my husband!


Do you know your own strengths?  I'm not asking how much you can bench press; rather, I'm curious about what you know well and love to do.  One of my strengths is talking.  To myself or to other people (doesn't really matter).  In fact, I have taken the Clifton Strengths Finder and according to that instrument, my top strengths are: Input, Strategic, Maximizer, Individualization, Positivity, Ideation, and WOO (Winning Others Over).  


Yes, I have taken it twice - several strengths were repeated and a couple were added.  Conventional (Strengths Finder) Wisdom says that your first list of strengths is primary and any repetition of the assessment just uncovers additional strengths.  If you want to know more about what each of these strengths means, you can check out the Strength Finder 2.0 book (which, newly bought, comes with a code to take the assessment one time). In general, I think they fit me perfectly.  I crave new information (input) and tend to think about how one thread connects to another and how patterns fit and can be optimized (strategic).  As a teacher or consultant, I strive to help each individual find recognize their own strengths (maximizer) and chart their unique path building on these strengths (individualizer).  I've learned from life experiences that a positive outlook makes for a completely different playing field, so I value the pluses over the minuses (positivity).  My core strengths, though, are generating ideas and solutions (ideation) -- typically, workable ones -- and influencing people (WOO).  


Esteemed author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to spit-shine your skills until they gleam and earn you fame and acclaim.  10,000 hours is a lot of time doing one thing again and again -- whether that is playing chess, practicing piano, hammering nails, or talking to people.  Now, you have to be thinking:  What can I do really well?  What do I most enjoy doing?  Where do I want to be in 20 years?  What can I do well now that I would like to be able to do brilliantly in the future?  



Let's imagine that you spend 8 hours a day developing your core talent.  To reach the 10,000 hour mark, you will need to spend 1,250 days working at the skill you identify.  That is, more or less, around 3.5 years of spending 8 hours a day (7 days a week) working on that skill.  If you take weekends, holidays, or vacations -- or put in shorter days, then that 3.5 years could double, triple, or even quadruple.  Who in the world wants to spend that much time perfecting a skill that doesn't make their life brighter and more enjoyable?  


Not I, to be sure.  Ever since my parents dubbed me "Motor Mouth" at the tender age of 4, I have loved talking to people.  I talk to a great many different people on a regular basis, both in person and electronically.  Even after all this time and practice, though, I know there is always room for improvement.  So, I will continue my strength building for the next 20, 40, however many years.  


My wish for you is that you, too, can find the strengths you want to spend 10,000 hours developing and then enjoy the journey towards (and beyond) that goal.  You don't have to forsake your metaphorical hammer (weakness) entirely, just accept that you have limitations that will remain limitations.  As the Army says, be all that you can be -- find your power.  






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Coping with stress is tough enough without adding self-defeating thoughts and behaviors to the mix.  That snarky little voice inside your head tells you you’re not good enough, not smart enough … and never will be.  You try to adopt a new health habit but fall off the exercise (or diet) wagon … and decide that while you’re off the wagon, you might as well roll in the mud and enjoy it.  Sound familiar? Try reframing!

What research scientists, psychotherapists, and others can tell us about coping is that there are both positive and negative ways of coping.  Today we will look at the negative ways — what they are, why they are harmful, and how to get past the hurdles.  Be honest with yourself and try to identify the negative tendencies you harbor.  Which of these sound most like you?

• You worry endlessly, not just about the problems in front of you at the moment, but the “what ifs” that you can imagine.  You wonder if you will ever be happy.
• You try to ignore problems because you figure you cannot do anything to make them better.  If you pretend the problem does not exist, it might just go away.
• You feel sad or helpless because you cannot think of any way to solve the problem.  You simply cannot manage and often this turns to headaches, stomachaches, back pain, insomnia, and other physical symptoms.
• You blame yourself for the problem.  You accept full responsibility and kick yourself for being so stupid.
• You withdraw from the people and activities in your life so you do not have to tell others what is wrong.  It is better if you keep to yourself so you do not make anyone else miserable.

While some of these strategies might seem appropriate, they focus on avoidance not solutions.  Avoiding problems sends your stress response system into overdrive because it is constantly on the lookout for the “bear” to fight.  Often, though, these ways of coping are so much a part of our personal behavior that it is hard to imagine anything different.

Break the Worry Bond:  Anxiety Culture offers some great tips for getting rid of worry, one of which is to write worries down and “save them for later” (and, as we all know, later never comes).  You can trick your mind into letting go of its baggage! You can also harness your worries to help you reach satisfaction and try mindfulness meditation to relax and free your mind.

Identify the Problem:  While ignoring a toddler’s misbehavior might help it go away, that strategy does not work for most situations.  Ignoring your pile of work results in a bigger pile of work later.  Instead of ignoring, try to survey the problem.  If you are drowning in debt, try drawing up a list of your debts and resources and creating a budget.  If you have too much work to contemplate, make a to-do list and plan a reasonable schedule.  Without adequately defining a problem, it usually takes on a larger, scarier form in our mind. Plus, you can't tackle a problem or worry if you don't know what it is and where it starts.

Recognize Strengths:  When facing a big problem, it is natural to feel sad, even overwhelmed at first.  Some situations are out of our control, but we do not need to feel helpless.  Recognize what you can do and appreciate your strengths.  If you have a hard time assessing your own strengths, take a free brief strengths assessment through University of Pennsylvania or a a multiple intelligences survey. Take control where you can and build on that.  You may need to get help from others to take control, but first, find and nurture your own power.

Stop the Blame Game:  Blame can be directed towards self or towards others — but it rarely results in a productive path towards fixing a problem.  It is important to accept responsibility for mistakes, for bad situations — but accepting responsibility is an action step towards acknowledging that a solution can be found.  Casting blame is a hollow act of shaming the self or scapegoating others.  Empower yourself to move forward and focus on setting (and reaching) reasonable goals.  Write your goals down, and post them somewhere so you can see them every day. Personally, I use Evernote, a free online tool (with downloadable component and app for iPhone) to help me track my to-do list and goals along with all my work and web clippings.

Talk it Out:  Like other negative coping strategies people use unconsciously, withdrawing from the world simply avoids the problem and increases the stress you feel.  Talk about your problems.  Find a friend.  Talk to a priest, pastor, rabbi, or other spiritual adviser.  If you are not in the mood for talking to humans, unburden yourself to an animal (many Humane Society locations will let you visit with their cats).  Or do something good for the environment: plant a tree and talk to it to relieve your anxieties.  Sing about it.  Write about it.  Blog about it.  Find an online forum and see how others are coping with the same type of problem.  Reach out and use a lifeline.

Form a New Habit:  Many of the above speak to life change and forming new habits. Forming new habits can be a challenge, though, because it is hard to get out of the rut of doing something the same way you always have. Whether you need to start exercising, stop smoking, stick to a budget or adopt another new behavior, the first step is getting started. Taking an action step will help you cope with whatever you are facing. Then, count your wins and keep going! Stick with it and don't give up, even when you hit a snag.

To better understand what stress does to you, read Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers by Stanford neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky.  Sapolsky says that stress is the stuff of our imaginations.  Our bodies are not equipped for constant stress, so we need to develop good coping strategies. 

The bottom line with coping is that to get control over your problems, you need to accentuate the positive.  If you have personal stories or strategies to share, please post a comment and help others!